Customary and religious laws and
practices are often used as tools to control women's sexuality and to maintain
the imbalance of power in sexual relations. This paper describes customary and
religious laws and beliefs, and their impact on the situation of both rural and
urban women in Eastern Turkey, based on a study among 599 women from the region,
most of whom are or have been married. It shows that early marriage and polygyny
are still prevalent, religious marriage still takes place earlier than civil
marriage although the former is not legally binding, forced marriages still take
place and arranged marriages are still the majority, though more younger women
expected to be able to choose their partners. The study also finds that most
women would feel unable to seek divorce if their husbands had an extra-marital
relationship, but many women feared the custom of so-called honour killing if
they are suspected of such an affair. Next to none of the women had ever sought
legal recourse against domestic violence or marital rape, though these are
commonly experienced. A human rights training programme for women, a public
awareness campaign against honour killing of women accused of adultery, and a
campaign to alter the Turkish Criminal Code have been set up to address some of
these issues.

In Turkey, which has been a
secular state since 1923, the impact on women's sexuality of the imbalance of
power in sexual relations is clearly visible in the Eastern region, where a high
rate of female illiteracy, a desolate economic situation, a variety of customary
and religious practices which are often in breach of the official laws, and
specific forms of cultural violence and collective mechanisms aimed at
controlling women's sexuality, produce a wide range of violations of women's
human rights. This situation has worsened as a result of the ongoing armed
conflict between the Turkish security forces and the separatist Kurdistan
Worker's Party (PKK), which started in 1984. Turkey is unique in the Muslim
world with respect to the extent of secular and progressive reforms of the
family code affecting women's lives[1]. In 1926 the
introduction of the Turkish Civil Code, based on the Swiss Civil Code, banned
polygamy and granted women equal rights in matters of divorce, child custody and
inheritance. However, even several decades after these reforms, customary and
religious practices continue to be more influential in the daily lives of the
majority of women living in Turkey than the civil code; this is especially the
case for women living in Eastern Turkey.

This article examines
consent to marriage, marriage customs, polygyny and potential consequences of
extra-marital relationships for women as important elements of the context of
women's sexuality in Eastern Turkey. The analysis is based on data from
interviews conducted with 599 women in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, with
the framework of a broader research study on the impact of official, religious
and customary laws on women's lives in Turkey.

Eastern Turkey can at best
be characterised as a semi-feudal, traditional, agricultural economy. The region
has a multi-ethnic character. Besides Kurds and Turks, which are the largest
ethnic groups, the region also includes Zaza, Azerbaijanis, Arabs, Christians
who speak Syriac language and others[2]. No precise
figures on the Kurdish population in the region are available as the last
population census, which collected data on population by mother tongue, was
conducted in 1965. In recent demographic research on the massive migration
processes taking place within the region, Mutlu estimated the Kurdish population
in the Eastern region at 7.046 million in 1990, about 65 per cent of the total
population on the region[3]. Most of the
Kurdish population living in the region are dominated by tribal structures,
organised around 'big families', which have the characteristics of clans; the
feeling of group solidarity involves a large number of members of the extended
family and includes responsibilities towards the community[4]. The asiret
(tribal system) is usually characterised by large land holdings held by a tribal
leader, who is the landlord. The members of the asiret usually do not own land,
but work the landlord's holdings.

Women in Eastern and
Western Turkey

Turkey is one the countries
most seriously affected by problems resulting from regional differences in
socio-economic conditions, which are progressively worse as one moves from West
to East. These have a negative impact on the overall standard of living, the
effects of which are experienced more by women than men. The West of Turkey
consumes most of the private and public sector resources and is also highly
urbanised, while most of the population in the East lives in rural areas.
Approximately three-fourths of the population in the West live in urban areas,
compared with a rate of 46 per vent in the East. Although primary school
education has been mandatory in Turkey since 1927, in 1990 half of the women in
Eastern Turkey were illiterate compared to 21.6 per cent of men. The illiteracy
rates are much lower in Western Turkey, 19.7 per cent and 7.4 per cent for women
and men respectively[5]. As a consequence
of the armed conflict in the Eastern region, the number and quality of
educational institutions is declining, reducing women's educational
opportunities still further.

Women's participation in
the labour force in Turkey has been steadily declining from about 70 per cent in
the 1950s to about 30 per cent in 1996[6]. Most of this
decline is due to the high rate of rural-to-urban migration. When rural women
actively working in agriculture migrate to urban areas, the fact that they are
less educated than men virtually prevents them from finding paid employment in
the official labour force. In rural areas, where labour-intensive technology is
widespread, women together with their children work as unpaid family labour in
agriculture. However, regional differences are also striking in this instance.
In the West of Turkey the proportion of women working for pay is 40 per cent,
while in the East approximately 90 per cent of women still have the status of
unpaid family labour.[7]

The Eastern region is
characterised by the highest fertility rate in the country, 4.4 in 1992 as
compared to 2.0 in the Western region and 2.7 in the country as a whole.
Approximately 11 per cent of women living in the East have begun their
childbearing between the ages of 15 and 19, compared to 8.3 per cent in the
West. Regional differences in use of contraception are also substantial. The
level of current use of contraception is only 42 per cent in the East, whereas
it exceeds 70 per cent in the West and 60 per cent in other regions of Turkey[8]. Some of the
reasons behind the desire for a high number of children in the region are the desire for a powerful
tribe, the expectation by family elders of a boy child and the belief that Allah
will provide food for each person.[9] Boy children are
valued much more than girl children, which is reflected also in the fact that mothers, when asked about the total
number of their children, often mention only the number of boys, as girls 'do not count'.

In
recent decades, the increased dominance of market mechanisms and the
modernisation efforts of the state, including the construction of large dams and
irrigation projects in Southeastern Turkey, have has a profound impact on the
region and a process of dissolution of traditional social and economic relations
has begun. In this process, the political instruments used by the state are
mainly local organisations of the central bureaucracy and cooperation with local
tribes and political parties, all of which are male-dominated. Most of the
projects for technical training and development are planned for men, leaving out
women. As a result, modernisation projects are reinforcing the traditional
distribution of labour and women's passive role in civil society[10]. In addition, the
ongoing armed conflict and the militaristic cooperation between the state and
local landlords, sheiks and tribal leaders, has not only resulted in increased
violence but also strengthened the male-dominated patriarchal structure of the
society.

Study methodology and participants

The field research
concentrated primarily on three subject areas: 'women in the family', 'women as
citizens' and 'women's bodily rights'.

A weighted, multi-stage,
stratified cluster sampling approach was used in the selection of the survey
sample. The sample included 599 women, aged 14 through 75, living in 19
settlements in Southeastern and Eastern Turkey. (Table 1 gives background
characteristics of respondents.) The sample was designed so that a variety of
characteristics would be analysed for the region as a whole, urban and rural
areas (each as a separate domain) and Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian regions
(each as a separate region). The urban frame of the sample consisted of
settlements with populations of more than 20,000 and the rural frame settlements
with less than 20,000.

Three types of
questionnaire were used: for women living in monogamous marriages, women living
in polygynous marriages and women who were unmarried. All questionnaires
included common questions on background characteristics, marriage customs,
decision-making mechanisms in the family, inheritance, political, social and
religious participation, mobility, migration experiences, violence against women
and the Trait Anxiety Inventory (TAI). Women who were either currently or
previously married were asked about their husband's background characteristics,
perceived and experienced laws and customs of marriage, divorce and remarriage,
as well as reproductive behaviour. All three questionnaires were tested and
improved on the basis of a pilot study.

The questionnaires were
filled out by the interviewers through face-to-face interviews. The interviewers
were all from the region and had undergone lengthy, intensive training in all of
the issues covered by the questionnaire, as well as interviewing and sampling
techniques, to ensure they would use a sensitive approach towards the women
participating in the research. Face-to-face interviews lasted anywhere from 20
minutes to almost 3 hours.

The fact that 19.1 per cent
of the women could speak little or no Turkish at all meant they had little of no
possibility of applying independently to legal institutions in case of
violations of their rights within the family, as Turkish is the official
language in all governmental institutions, including the judicial
ones.

The
majority of women were married and only a small percentage divorced, indicating
the rarity of marital dissolution in the region. Seven percent were widowed,
more than the average in Turkey as a whole (4.3 per cent)[11], probably due to
the armed conflict in the region[12]. Only 11.2 per
cent of the participants worked outside the home and earned an income. The
majority were homemakers (48.9 per cent) or unpaid rural workers (32.8 per
cent).

Marriage and sexuality

According to article 88 of
the Turkish Civil Code, the minimum age for a civil marriage, which is the only
legally valid marriage ceremony in Turkey, is 17 for men and 15 for women.
However, the age of majority for all other legal procedures except marriage is
18[13]. Despite this
law, 16.3 per cent of women living in the region are married under the age of 15
and in a religious ceremony, although it is against the law to hold a religious
ceremony of marriage before a civil ceremony has taken place.[14]

Ninety-seven per cent of women who
were over 24 years of age, and all of the women who were over 34 years of age
were or had been married, indicating that marriage is almost compulsory for
women living in the region. The tradition of bride price, the sum given by the
man to the wife's family for the realisation of marriage, is very widespread in
the region and plays an important role in the attitude of men, who assume that
through this payment they have gained all rights over their wives' sexuality and
fertility. In fact, the tradition can be considered as the sale of women for
marriage by their families. Although 78.9 per cent of all married women have
indicated that they are against this tradition, 61.2 per cent have indicated
that their husbands had to pay bride price for them.

Table 2 shows the types of
marriage and related indicators. The institutions of polygyny, early and
forced/arranged marriages, kidnapping and the exchange of women for marriage are
widespread in the region.

Polygyny

One out of ten marriages in
the region is polygynous, although polygyny was banned in Turkey in 1926. As a
result, in the case of polygynous marriages, only one wife can have a civil
marriage whereas the others can only have religious marriages. A religious
marriage ceremony confers no legally binding rights under the Civil Code, such
as the rights related to divorce, maintenance of inheritance from the husband.
More than half of the women (58.2 per cent) in a polygynous marriage lived in
the same house as their husband's other wives and a majority (65.3 per cent)
said they had serious problems with the other wives. Despite all the
disadvantages of a polygynous marriage, almost half of the women in such a
marriage stated that either the marriage was arranged by themselves, or that
they entered into this arrangement of their own will, which indicates a
widespread acceptance of polygyny by women. The Islamic injunction that a man
may marry up to four wives if he so wishes, and the cultural atmosphere which
regards ply as a man's natural right, play an important role in the acceptance
of the practice by women.

Civil and religious marriages
and age at marriage

Almost one fifth of the
respondents (19.6 per cent) had had only a religious marriage and no civil
marriage. This percentage is much higher than the average in Turkey (8.3 per
cent)(11). According to the Civil Law, only civil marriages are legally valid in
Turkey, religious marriages provide women with no legal rights and a religious
ceremony can only be held after the civil ceremony. Otherwise, both the couple
and the religious official conducting the marriage are deemed to have committed
an offence, which is punishable under the terms of the Criminal Code[15]. Despite these
regulations, as Table 2 shows, both the mean and median age at the time of the
religious marriage ceremony was lower than the age at the time of the civil
marriage ceremony, i.e. the religious ceremony is often held before the civil
ceremony. Early marriages are widespread in the region and holding a religious
ceremony before the girl reaches the legal minimum marriage age of 15 is often a
strategy applied by the families to bypass the civil
law.

Forced and arranged marriages

Although under the Turkish
Civil Code the consent of both the woman and the man is a precondition for
marriage, women often have no influence over the choice of their prospective
partner and frequently marry against their will. In fact, even in cases where
women are consulted about the choice of husband, a high degree of social control
over women's sexuality is maintained through a taboo on pre-marital sex, certain
forms of religious and cultural practices related to marriage and severe
violence, all of which limit the space for women to exercise their right to
consent fully.

A majority of the marriages
(61.2 per cent) were arranged by the families; only every fourth marriage was
arranged by the couple themselves. However, even when the marriage is arranged
by the couple, the agreement of their families is very often a precondition for
the marriage. One in 20 marriages was a berdel case, a tradition where a woman
is offered as compensation to the family of her father's or brother's wife.
These marriages are based on the exchange of brides who have 'equal value',
which means that if one marriage fails, the other has to fail too. Therefore, in
this kind of marriage the women are more of less hostages and the families are
not likely to allow the women to run away or divorce[16]. One woman was
offered as a wife to a family as compensation for an offence committed against
them by her male relatives, and another was forced to marry the younger brother
of her deceased husband. The tradition of betrothing girls while they are still
infants seems to be disappearing, although it continues to be practiced (0.9 per
cent).

About 5
per cent of the women stated that they had asked their husbands to kidnap them
or that they eloped with their husbands of their own free will. This is a
strategy applied by women when their families do not allow them to marry the
partner of their choice, or when he is not able to pay the bride money requested
by her family. Although this might seem to be an effective strategy that allows
women to select their own partners, there may be high costs involved for the
women. YalÁin-Heckmann, in her research about women's strategies in tribal
cultures of Eastern Turkey, concludes that women who have been 'kidnapped by
their husbands by their own will' are almost always considered to have eloped by
their husband's families, which often leads to loss of prestige and status on
their side and even to violence against them.[17]

More than half of the women
(50.8 per cent) were married without their consent and 45.7 per cent were not
even consulted about their partner and the marriage. Those who had not met their
husbands before the marriage constituted 51.6 per cent of the
participants.

Tables 3 and 4 show the
expectations of unmarried women about their future marriages. The percentage of
unmarried women who believed that they would be able to decide on their partner
themselves was only 58.0 per cent. Of these, only 46.4 per cent responded
positively to the question of whether they thought they could decide to have a
boyfriend or not.

In fact, even if the
marriage is arranged by the couple themselves, it is often the case that they
can meet each other only after the marriage ceremony has taken place.
Nonetheless, the percentage of unmarried women who thought that they could
arrange their marriages themselves was much higher than the percentage of
married women who had done so, indicating a perception of increasing autonomy
over the choice of partner. This view is also supported by the mothers. When
asked about who could decide on who their daughters' prospective husband would
be, 52.5 per cent answered that their daughters would make the decision
themselves. However, those who stated that their sons would themselves choose
their partners independently was much higher at 75.5 per cent.

Of the women who thought
that their marriages would be arranged by their families, 28.7 per cent believed
that they would not be consulted about the marriage and 72.4 per cent that they
could not be able to meet their husbands before
marriage.

Extra-marital relationships

At the present time, there
are no official laws in Turkey restricting the right of a woman to engage in a
relationship with any man or woman of her choice before, during of after
marriage. However, extra-marital relationships are an absolute taboo for women
in the region, whereas men's extra-marital affairs are widely accepted through
the institution of polygyny. The customary penalty for women suspected of such a
crime in the region is usually death, the so-called honour killings. 'Honour
killing' is a term used for the murder of a woman suspected of having
transgressed the limits on sexual behaviour as imposed by tradition,
specifically engaging in a premarital relationship with a man or suspected
extra-marital affairs.

Until 1996, the Turkish
Criminal Code made fornication a criminal offence and differentiated between men
and women in the definition of fornication. In December 1996, the article which
defined fornication by men and, in June 1998, the article which defined
fornication by women were both annulled by the Turkish Constitutional Court on
the grounds that the differences violated article 10 of the Turkish
Constitution, which states that men and women must be equal before the law[18]. The annulled
articles stated that for a woman one complete sexual act with a man other than
her husband was sufficient for conviction of fornication. A married man could
not be convicted of fornication unless it was proved that he was living together
with a woman other than his wife. Since the annulment of these articles,
fornication is not considered to be a crime in the official
legislation.

Table 5 summarises the
perceptions of women in the region as to the consequences of adultery, which are
strikingly different from what is now decreed in the official
legislation.

A
majority of the women (66.6 per cent) believed that, contrary to the law, they
could not divorce their husbands if they committed adultery, even if they would
have liked to. Since religious marriages are legally invalid in Turkey, they
ensure no right of legal divorce. Thus, more women who had had only a religious
marriage (75.7 per cent) thought they could not divorce their husbands on the
grounds of adultery than those who had had both civil and religious marriages
(66.2 per cent), but the difference was not that great. Although the increase in
women's educational levels increased women's perception of the possibility of
getting a divorce, 31.5 per cent of women who had secondary or higher education
still believed they could not divorce their husbands for adultery.
Interestingly, there was no difference in the perceptions of women living in
urban and rural areas on this issue.

On the other hand, the
percentage of women who thought that they would be killed by their husbands
and/or their families if they committed adultery was very high: 66.6 per cent.
This perception was even more common among those who had little or no education,
those who had only a religious marriage and those who lived in rural areas. Most
of those who thought that their husbands would do something else other than
divorcing or killing them, expected that they would be beaten up very badly by
their husbands if they were suspected of an extra-marital affair.

The removal of fornication
as a criminal offence in law is very recent, and although there are no
provisions explicitly referring to 'crimes of honour' in the Turkish Criminal
Code, this tradition is still supported in law. An extra-marital affair of a husband or wife is considered to be
a 'provocation' and the sentence can be reduced by one eighth if such
provocation is deemed to have taken place.[19]

Violence
against women

Violence against women is
one of the main tools used to oppress women socially and sexually. More than
half of all married women living in the region are subjected to domestic
violence by their husbands (Table 6). Those who are subjected to sexual violence
(marital rape) constitute 51.9 per cent of the participants. As the educational
level of women and their husbands increases, the extent of domestic violence
decreases. However, one third of the women who have had a secondary or higher
education are subjected to emotional and physical violence by their husbands and
one fourth have experienced marital rape.

The Turkish Criminal Code
does not contain special provisions relating to the use of violence against
women in marriage. The husband is usually charged under the general provisions
of the Criminal Code, including article 478, which provides for imprisonment up
to 30 months for the maltreatment of a family member in a manner which
contravenes the accepted understanding of affection or mercy[20]. In order to make
use of this law, a woman who is subjected to violence must file a complaint.
However, only 1.2 per cent of those who have experienced domestic violence have
notified the police that it has occurred, and those who have actually filed a
complaint are even less 0.2 per cent.

The most common strategies
used by women against the violence of their husbands is to leave home
temporarily (22.1 per cent) or to ask for help from their families, friends or
neighbours (14.7 per cent). There are no shelters or institutions offering help
to victims of domestic violence in the region. This contributes to the
helplessness of women who experience domestic violence. One of the reasons
hindering women living in the region from filing a complaint is the mistrust
towards security forces as a result of the armed conflict. This mistrust is not
only due to the atmosphere of political and social suppression by the security
forces, but also to the violence carried out by them. Those who have experienced
physical or emotional violence on the part of the security forces constitute 1.3
per cent and 3.4 per cent of the participants respectively; 2 percent have
indicated that they have experienced sexual harassment by members of the
security forces.

Discussion - and some initial
steps

The
internalisation of gender roles by women in a particular culture is often
directly related to the impact of specific mechanisms controlling women's
sexuality, which are often of a 'collective' nature[21]. The findings in
this research are all reflective of a number of mechanisms of control on women's
sexuality in Eastern Turkey. The social pressure on women to marry, early and
forced or arranged marriages, the tradition of bride money, extended exchange of
wives between families, and the extent of the threat of violence against women
who transgress the limits on sexual behaviour as imposed by traditions
constitute some of these control mechanisms. These are supported by customary
and religious practices. Most of these practices, which represent or lead to
serious violations of women's rights, still exist despite reforms banning them
as long as 70 years ago, as with child marriage, polygyny or crimes of honour.
The extent of domestic violence experienced by women, including marital rape,
and the constant threat of violence are bound to affect not only their sexual
health and perceptions of sexuality negatively, but also decrease their chances
of creating and applying strategies against the violation of their
rights.

As in
many other countries, most women in the region are not aware of their existing
rights and there are no services they can make use of in order to be informed
about their rights. The expansion of such services for women in the region is
one of the ways of supporting them to develop strategies to defend their rights.
Since 1997, Women for Women's Human Rights, an NGO based in Istanbul, has begun
to carry out women's human rights training programmes in the region in order to
respond to this need. We are now cooperating with existing Community Centres in
the region in order to establish such programmes for women on a long-term
basis.[22]

In
order to raise public awareness of and to create preventive strategies against
these practices, it is essential to name and integrate them into a women's human
rights agenda on the national and international levels as well. For example,
since 1996 an ongoing campaign carried out by women's organisations in Western
Turkey has been trying to raise public awareness to put an end to the so-called
honour killings. One demand, considered to be a necessary and immediate step
towards addressing this issue, has taken the form of a proposed amendment to the
Turkish Criminal Code, to allow concerned women's organisations and individual
women to be present at and participate in any court cases as interested parties.
It is also proposed that the amendment would eliminate articles which serve as
grounds for reduced punishment in the case of honour killings (eg. of the
murderer is a minor). This proposal has also been submitted to the UN Committee
for the Elimination of All Kinds of Discrimination Against Women, at the meeting
for the periodic review of Turkey in January 1997 by Women for Women's Human
Rights, in collaboration with the Purple Roof Foundation and Equality
Watch.

TABLES - see the RTF file for the complete
tables

Table 1. Background characteristics of respondents (n = 599)

Table 2. Type
of marriage and marriage-related indicators

Table 3. Expectations about marriage of unmarried women
(%)

Table 4. Consent to marriage when arranged by the family
(%)

Table 5. Adultery if committed by the husband or wife and whether
divorce would be possible (%)

FOOTNOTES

[1] The reform of the Civil Code, based on the Swiss Civil Code, was a major success of the reformists against the conservative forces defending the religious family code in 1926.

[2] At the time of the Islamic conquests, the term 'Kurd' meant nomad. By the mid-19th century 'Kurd' was also used to mean tribes people who spoke the Kurdish language. At
present, insider's and outsiders' views concur on the definition of Kurds as those who speak Kurdish as their mother tongue.

[3] In this research, Kurds are defined as those who declared their mother tongue as Kurdish, including Zaza in the 1965 population census. Mutlu S., 1995. Population of Turkey by ethnic
groups and provinces. New Perspectives on Turkey. 12 (Spring):33-60.

[4] For more information on the Kurdish tribal culture, see McDowall D., 1997. A Modern History of the Kurds. IB Tauris, London / New York; and Unsal A., 1995. Kan Davasi (Original Title: La Vendetta). Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, Istanbul.

[16] Extended exchange of wives is not a Muslim or Middle Eastern tradition. The practice exists also in other parts of the world, for example in China. See Wijers M. and Lap-Chew L., 1997. Trafficking in Women, Forced Labour and Slavery-like Practices in Marriage, Domestic Labour and Prostitution. Foundation against Trafficking in Women (STV), Utrecht.